And presently we shall see how upon the Inn itself and its pleasaunces this many-sided mind impressed itself to our advantage. Through an arch in the far angle of the Square we pass to a narrow, oblong building of the crudest early nineteenth-century type, looking across an ugly wall upon the noisy Gray’s Inn Road. This is the ugly line of Verulam Buildings (1811), which Charles Lamb justly called ‘accursed,’ for they encroached upon the gardens, ‘cutting out delicate crankles, and shouldering away one or two of the stately alcoves of the terrace.’ A postern-gate at the far corner leads out to the junction of Gray’s Inn Road with Theobald’s Road, a dismal thoroughfare, which is bounded by a railing, through which a delightful vista of green trees and turf gladdens the sight of the passer-by--turf and green trees which form the gracious playground of the children for whom the gates are opened each summer evening. Another Gateway by ‘Jockey Fields,’ in Theobald’s Road, leads past Raymond Buildings, the same kind of ugly, unabashed, stock-brick barracks as Verulam Buildings, and dating from the same period. Crude and unpleasing as these dull blocks are to behold, they have the great advantage of being very pleasant to live in, for they line and look out upon the Gardens which the great Philosopher laid out. Raymond Buildings end in Field Court, which in turn adjoins South Square. One side of Field Court is formed by the iron railings and fine iron Gateway (1723) which terminate the Gardens. Square stone gate-posts carry the Griffin of the Inn. For the device of Gray’s Inn is a Griffin, or, in a field sable. Within this Gate a broad avenue of plane-trees, flanked by grassy lawns and terraces, leads to a green earth-work terrace at the northern end of the gardens. This terrace was probably constructed with the intention of shutting out the view of the squalid houses that had begun to spring up in that direction. James Spedding records that Raleigh, just before his last disastrous voyage to the New World, had a long conversation with Bacon in those Gardens. And it is said that Bacon planted here a ‘catalpa tree,’ very likely brought home by Raleigh, which still survives, and is certainly one of the oldest in England. This is the sprawling, senile tree, tottering to its grave with the aid of a dozen propping sticks, which forms a striking feature upon the left-hand side of the path, looking from the Gateway.